assassination
Americannoun
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assassinations
plural
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the premeditated act of killing someone suddenly or secretively, especially a prominent person.
The meticulous way in which the journalist's assassination was carried out has led to suspicions that his killers were professionals working for state security.
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the act of destroying or harming treacherously and viciously.
They went after me with everything they had, engaging in character assassination and in destroying my reputation—a complete fabrication and frame-up.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of assassination
Explanation
An assassination is the murder of a public figure. Assassinations are usually politically motivated. If someone kills your dog, that’s not an assassination, that’s just murder (unless your dog was running for mayor). A murder is the unjust, illegal killing of someone. An assassination is a type of murder in which the victim is someone well known, usually in the world of politics. The killings of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King were assassinations: their purpose was to destabilize the government and hurt the civil rights movement, respectively. As assassination is murder plus politics.
Vocabulary lists containing assassination
American History I
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March Vocabulary Words
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World War I
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
MJ also thinks Chris, who is writing a memoir, might be preparing to tell the world everything he knows about the JFK assassination, which he can’t allow.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Nov. 4, 2026
But it also describes what happened in the U.S. in the 1960s, when protests over racism, the Vietnam War, and the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. sometimes escalated into riots.
From Slate ● Oct. 24, 2026
But when Grace survives an assassination attempt, Todd is genuinely shaken.
From Salon ● Oct. 22, 2026
The hospital set up a special Papal suite following the failed assassination attempt on Pope John Paul II's life in May 1981, which is still in use today.
From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026
It came to light later that President Kennedy wasn’t surprised by the threat of assassination, either.
From "While the World Watched: A Birmingham Bombing Survivor Comes of Age during the Civil Rights Movement" by Carolyn Maull McKinstry
Vietnam, inner-city riots, and the assassinations of Robert F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. had cast a pall over the Day-Glo optimism of the Love Generation.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 10, 2026
The proposed rules would likely prohibit bets on war, terrorism, assassinations, player injuries, and first pitch gambling.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 10, 2026
Unlike so many retellings of famous assassinations, attempted or otherwise, Harron’s movie gets to the heart of its subject’s discontent without dwelling on dramatizations of Solanas’ fragile psyche.
From Salon ● Apr. 29, 2026
"Well, you know, I've studied assassinations," Trump said.
From Barron's ● Apr. 26, 2026
The executive branch of the government—Vice President Johnson and the cabinet—had survived the night; no other assassinations had occurred.
From "Chasing Lincoln's Killer" by James L. Swanson
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
